Starmer welcomes Zelenskyy’s offer to work with Trump on Ukraine peace deal – as it happened

Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Keir Starmer at the weekend summit in UK Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

5.47pm GMT

Afternoon summary

• The shadow defence secretary and other MPs have reacted with fury after JD Vance appeared to describe a proposed Anglo-French peace deployment to Ukraine as “20,000 troops from some random country that has not fought a war in 30 or 40 years”. In posts on social media today, Vance claimed his comment was misunderstood and that he was not referring to Britain or France. (See 12.39pm.) But some MPs have continued to criticise him despite the vice president’s attempt to clarify what he meant. James Cleverly, a former Tory foreign secretary, told Times Radio:

The only time in the history of Nato where article 5 has been invoked is in the immediate response of 9/11, an attack on the United States of America. The United States of America’s friends and allies, including the UK and including France, rallied to their support and British service personnel lost their lives supporting America.

It was, I think, a foolish and insulting, throwaway remark. I understand that he has explained his position but I think it was a hurtful and thoughtless remark.

• Rishi Sunak, the former Conservative prime minister, has said that President Trump’s treatment of President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Friday last week was “wrong” and “very hard to watch”. (See 5.35pm.)

• Trade unions have declared victory as Labour bolstered a string of measures in its workers’ rights bill, amid criticism of the government from business groups saying there had been no “meaningful change” despite engagement.

• Lord Evans of Watford, the Labour peer facing cash-for-access questions, is under formal investigation by the Lords standards watchdog after undercover filming by the Guardian.

• Failings in the making of a documentary on Gaza are a “dagger to the heart” of the BBC’s claims of trustworthiness and impartiality, the corporation’s chair has said, as he indicated that figures inside the corporation had fallen short in their handling of the film.

Updated at 6.00pm GMT

5.35pm GMT

Trump's treatment of Zelenskyy was 'wrong' and 'very hard to watch', says Rishi Sunak

President Trump’s treatment of President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Friday last week was “wrong”, the former prime minister Rishi Sunak has said. In an interview with Nick Robinson for his Political Thinking podcast, he said:

It was very hard to watch. As someone who has spent a lot of time with Volodymyr, been in Kyiv with him, has seen what he has had to go through for his country, to see him be called a dictator, told that he started this war, for him to have been treated that way was wrong.

"It was very hard to watch," former PM Rishi Sunak tells #PoliticalThinking with @bbcnickrobinson in the wake of the Oval Office row between Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trumphttps://t.co/7WijJlPKiV pic.twitter.com/VFQyMKQRsY

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) March 4, 2025

Updated at 5.52pm GMT